Card and Scrapbooking Supplies Blog

Peel Off stickers are experiencing a revival. There is such a huge range now of stickers that cover a wide range of themes. Personally I have a bit of a thing for the black stickers as they either give that very distinct line around the picture and depending on what your theme is – eg Christmas Baubles etc., the black edge can give that stained glass effect.

Also now that Elizabeth Craft Designs has bought out the transfer sheets for using with the “waste” left on the sheet, you can now get double the amount of product from your sheet and a very interesting effect.

New products in the store just motivate me to make cards that are simple and easy for any skill level to put together. My theme this year has tended to be just two or three colours to keep it all very easy and time efficient. I always promise myself that I will start early to make my own cards but for the past few years that just hasn’t happened and I find myself rushing close to post time to get them done.

Some of the products are not on the store yet. I have an issue with the admin side of the store and cannot load new products or accept Visa payments. Hopefully this will be sorted soon but in the meantime any questions regarding products can be asked on the Facebook page – see below for link. Purchases can also be made Offline by paying direct into the Business Bank Account once you have been invoiced.

I decided to try a Shimmer Sheet from Elizabeth Craft Designs behind the Nativity to see what effect I would get. The final result stunned me as I thought the the shimmer designs fitted exactly to the scene. How cool is that!!

Just a few days ago Sylvia visited me and showed me these gorgeous cards she had made. She has generously given me permission to showcase these here on the BLOG and I will be showing more of her cards over the next days.

It is great to see what other creators do! If you are like me you will sometimes (maybe often) have a block and then you see what someone else has created and it gets you inspired again.

Shimmer Sheetz are reasonably new on the market. I first saw them just before Christmas last year and made a few cards with them. The colour range is amazing. They easily emboss, and you can use various markers to add additional colour. You can die cut them but not easily with intricate dies. I have cut them on the Cricut machine though and that worked well.

There are some good examples of how to use them on You Tube.

So for Sylvia’s cards. I am sure you will agree that these are beautiful.

As you can see, emboss these with whatever design you wish and you have your own unique style. These cards look stunning in the evening as well. If you have them on the sideboard or somewhere on show, they take on a whole new look when the light reflects off them.

It has been fun to play with these new dies and I was trying to make cards that were not necessarily the usual heart theme – weddings, anniversaries etc. But of course I needed a Wedding one in there. I will continue to add to this range to show that the die can be used for a variety of themes and plan on adding a Baby one, Sympathy/Thinking of You – along with others.

video link is below.

Wedding Card Front

The photo doesn`t really do justice to the colours here as the heart and the card are both white (with silver pattern on the heart).

Front – standing

I have used one of the dies from the Agatha Edges die set here to create the edge and then cut the same edge from the reverse side of the Pavlova paper used on the heart.

Wedding card – Open

You can see the reverse side of the Pavlova paper on the edge here and then the paper is used again on each of the hearts.

Birthday – Front closed

Once again using a Pavlova paper and then various cardstock pieces which were cut from the additional pieces that come with the Pivot heart die.

Front Standing

Inside

The scroll is also done using one of the Agatha Edge dies and is actually in a light mauve.

Back

Triple Fold Picot Card – Front

The butterfly is made using some of the heart dies from this same set and the centre of the butterfly is cut using the key hole die from this same set. The lace paper is also a Pavlova paper.

Back 1st two folds

The Happy Birthday is also a Die from the Elizabeth Craft Design Dies and woops I see I have missed a pearl from the centre of one of the flowers – must fix that.

Inside fully open

Another Agatha Edge die used here.

Back 1st two folds

Back fully open

Inside 3rd fold

The small sentiment tags on this card are from the Hunkydory Sentiment sets.

Shirley’s Card

Click on Photos to enlarge.

Shirley’s One fold card

Maureen’s 2 Cards. Both Trifold. Heart Pivot on the 1st fold of one card and on the 2nd fold of the other card.

Brenda’s Card.Brenda has used lovely shimmer paper behind the word heart and on the top of the other heart.

While this is a new product to me and the Online store, by checking out You Tube, Elizabeth Craft Designs and Pinterest you can see that this has been around for a little while now. So go check those places out for real inspiration.

I learned some lessons while playing with the product and also by being put in touch with Els from Elizabeth Craft – so helpful.

As I say on my Facebook page, I am a rather awkward crafter. Because I have had Rheumatoid Arthritis forever…………………well since I was 16, my hands don’t always do what I want them to do but usually I manage to cover up my mistakes. You did know didn’t you that there are NO MISTAKES in crafting, you really did want that flower or that bit of lace right where it is. Shhhhh, nobody knows what is underneath!!

I should stop waffling and show you what I have created so far.

Embossed and inked and……….

So simple to run the Shimmer Sheetz through the Cuttlebug using an Embossing Folder. It worked a treat and shimmers and sparkles right before your eyes. I have to tell you none of the photos do these products justice!! The effect is really quite stunning!

Next I tried the sanding, to bring out the silver core. Mmmmm….. well I should have laid it flat on the table and tried that but of course I didn’t, I balanced it on my hand. Don’t ask me why. Maybe I just needed to learn the lesson that you could learn from me!! So place it on a flat surface when you sand the raised embossing.

Then I got out my Staz On black stamp pad and ran that over the embossing. Elizabeth Craft have a You Tube video showing this and it looks amazing. Because my Staz On needs a bit more life (ink) added into it, it didn’t quite hit the mark but I could see the potential there as I hope you also can. You certainly will if you check out You Tube etc.

I decided to cut the embossed piece into four uneven size to get the effect I wanted. The sheets are 5″ x 12″ and I wanted to get three designs from the sheet and our NZ cards are deeper than the 5inches hence my reason for stretching out the design by placing it over the black card to fill the front of the card. A bit of black lace cut with an Anastasia Cheery Lynn die and some pearl bling and we have an almost finished creation. It just needs a sentiment, then again…..maybe it doesn’t.

Another……….

Red Metallic and Peel Off Ornaments.

No too many errors in my third play. One of the bows is a bit scew but I can adjust that. I have placed the ornament peel offs onto clear acetate and then used Dufex brush markers to colour the acetate from the back. There are so many ways you can use the Peel Offs, not just these but the others on the store. Colour them in, place foil behind or a pattern paper, leave them as they are, use water colour pencils or markers when you have placed them on water colour paper. The ideas are limitless. The Wishing you a Merry Christmas on this card is a Doodey Transparent Peel Off sticker and once again, what ever you place it over will show through, or of course you can colour it in as I have done on the next card.

Copper Magic!

I saw a Christmas card somewhere, some time ago that was all done in brown tones. It was stunning! When I saw this copper Shimmer Sheetz I thought – now that would work! The effect of this copper one once again is really quite something. As you see I have used the Doodey Peel Off again for the sentiment and used two of the Elizabeth Craft Design Ornaments in the Gold. You can get these in Black and Silver as well. Silver is in stock and the black is about to be ordered.

My mistake on this card? I was a bit heavy handed with the Peel Off and pulled it off the sheet as I would a smaller Peel off or a Transparent one and the longer ornament is a little out of shape. Why am I showing/telling you this? Well whoever gets this card won’t know that it isn’t supposed to look like this, so I’m not telling them……..but also you can learn from my mistake. Els said either put the sticker on the table upside down and place your paper over this or “make your fingers a little bit wet. That way it is really easy to handle the peel off.’s”. Simple when you know how. Also, I just used a border piece of Peel Off for the string but you could use ribbon, twine, sparkle thread.

Tulip design on Shimmer Sheetz.

I just used some small pieces left over to make these next two cards. I laid the tulip over the green and the Turquoise piece and cut around. That is just black card stock in the background that I ran through the Cuttlebug with an embossing folder. I love the stain glass look of these black outlines.

Tulips from………..

You can also see a variation of colour in the green stem on this one but still the photos do not really show the full effect. The pictures of the actual sheets will give you a better idea of the effect.

I have also used some Washi tape on this last card. Washi tape? What is that? It is a Japanese invented sticky back tape which is either transparent or fabric, comes in a range of designs – florals, checks, spots, plains etc. and is about to be added to our store. In the meantime feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding this.